Swing states and conservative Congressional districts, says a new report from the Guardian.
It’s the swing states that are benefiting the most from the Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) clean energy production incentives.
That’s the Guardian’s takeaway from an analysis the news outlet commissioned of that landmark industrial policy, which found that $63 billion of the $150 billion worth of announced investments in electric vehicle, battery and renewable manufacturing since 2022 are going to Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin – the toss-up states that Democrat Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump need to win this year’s presidential election.
That isn’t the report’s only takeaway, of course. The analysis glosses over this, but heavily Republican states like Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina and deep blue Illinois have seen heavy clean manufacturing investment that far outpaces swingy Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as evidenced by the Guardian’s own graphic.
But that’s not the only way you can dice the numbers. Interpret them another way, which the Guardian article does, and you’ll see it’s conservative Congressional districts that have raked in the most investment. “Politically, Republican rural and exurban areas have received the lion’s share of the spending,” it explains, “a fact that’s causing growing nervousness among some GOP members of Congress over the prospect of Trump reversing new job creation in their districts, even after they voted against it.”
We’ve observed often the massive spike in manufacturing construction activity in the past few years. That’s not new.
And this Guardian article isn’t the first to notice that a lot of clean energy manufacturing spending is happening in Republican areas, either. “Many areas benefiting from clean-energy projects,” a USA Today piece from a year ago read, “are deeply red politically and backed former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.”
These articles even speak to the same owner of a bar in Weirton, W.Va., who told USA Today in 2023 she doesn’t “like anything about Bidenomics” and used the word “communism” when the Guardian asked about the IRA in 2024. The bar is down the street from a tin mill being repurposed to build electrical transformers and a new factory now making advanced batteries.
It’s amusing that these national outlets spoke to the same small business owner on the same subject. But her quips are indicative of the mood of voters, most of whom don’t know what the IRA is even if they like its specifics.
Harris and Trump, meanwhile, are still fighting for manufacturing voters. The former will deliver a speech on her manufacturing-policy plans this week, while the latter is promising more tariffs to boost the sector – and to do away with the IRA.